The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2014-07-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on how many claims for benefits made by telephone by people in Preston constituency in 2014 to date were interrupted by the claimant running out of credit.
Steve Webb
The requested information is not available from current Management Information systems as no information relating to the causes of call terminations is gathered. As such, it is not possible to distinguish between reasons for termination or to distinguish between calls terminated by agents or callers.
The current Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) policy is that all calls should be free to our 0800 numbers to claim:
- State Pension;
- Pension Credit;
- Jobseekers’ Allowance;
- Income Support;
- Employment Support Allowance; and,
- Personal Independence Payment.
It is free to call DWP 0800 numbers from all major landline providers.
DWP continues to have agreements with O2, Everything Everywhere (formerly Orange and T-Mobile), Vodafone (including Cable & Wireless), Three (also known as Hutchison 3G), Tesco Mobile and Virgin Mobile ahead of the OFCOM changes due in June 2015. This agreement allows many of our customers to make free mobile phone calls from their participating networks to the Department’s 0800 customer numbers.
DWP is aware of possible concerns about call charges to enquiry and claims lines so agents will routinely offer to call a customer back if concerns are raised over the cost of the call. The Department also provides controlled access to telephones for claimants if required in support of job-searches or benefit enquiries.
During June 2014 the average duration of a call to the Primary Benefit New Claims lines (ESA, IS and JSA) from connection to termination was 14 minutes and 43 seconds.